Prepare for the extinction of your favourite coffee

By Zeinab Makki

Droughts can destroy harvests, but even small temperature changes can affect flavour profiles. Credit: 123RF

The effects of climate change are gradually taking its toll on our planet. Carbon emissions are causing temperatures to increase, sea levels to rise, and 60 per cent of the world’s coffee species to become extinct. The latter is according to a recent study conducted by the Science Advances Institute.

Whether you take it black, white, or green; your average coffee is most likely made of Arabica or Robusta beans (two of the 124 known species).

Bilal Fakih is a member of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Sierra Leone. He notes that global warming has caused “erratic rainfall patterns” and “environmental degradation” posing negative outcomes for coffee production and productivity.

Fakih insists that the gradual extinction of these coffee plants will “undermine the coffee industry” thus hindering business drive and profit margins. “Gradual extinction suggests that strategies to mitigate this threat should be employed to minimise the risks,” he says.

The ministry currently uses an “early warning system which is utilised to monitor climatic changes and to help in making informed decisions to effectively institute mitigation and adaptation measures.”

Despite the ministry’s preparedness, local business is not equipped with the same tools and funding to prepare for such changes.

Randlyn Holdings Limited produce and supply Robusta coffee beans and cocoa locally and internationally.

“To prepare for such a decline, we would push for an organic certification which guarantees more profit regardless of the harvest,” managing director, Mariam Fawaz says, “this ensures security for your business and for the farmers.”

Fawaz notes that because of the impacts of climate change and the decreasing market, farmers have been shifting from coffee to cocoa in recent years.

Because of the droughts and temperature changes, her company has been importing cocoa hybrids to keep up, however, the small market size doesn’t allow for the investment in coffee hybrids (Timor is a cross between the Arabica and Robusta beans). Hybrids are more versatile and stronger versions able to survive any tropical environment.

According to the findings of the Science Advances Institute, 60 per cent of the coffee species could go extinct as soon as the next 10 to 20 years. They attribute this mainly to “accelerate climatic change” as well as “human settlement” and “deforestation”.

Whilst local coffee producers and business must implement expensive measures to adapt to such changes, the consumer drinking the brew may not necessarily be as willing to change their taste buds to adapt to the upcoming differences.

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